


Impostor Syndrome

by oloros



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Isolation, M/M, Relationship tagged is very brief, Unhealthy Relationships, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:21:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27630614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oloros/pseuds/oloros
Summary: Connor opened up a dangerous gate that he figured someone else would hold the key to. It's a horrible thing to be alone in the world, and a dangerous thing when your only company is the man you see in the mirror.
Relationships: Connor/Markus (Detroit: Become Human), Hank Anderson & Connor
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	Impostor Syndrome

**Author's Note:**

> This is a vent piece, so there may be an inconsistent train of thought.

“What’s it like to deviate?”

“I’m not sure,” Connor said.

  
**\--*--**

  
_I need you to guard our supplies while we ready them for transfer._

They trusted him with the supplies that had survived the attack. Threats no longer loomed, but the parts of an android were valuable and easy to steal. He was what stood between them.

It made sense. Connor was unassuming at first glance but a forced to be reckoned with. He could stand for hours, like a statue without a fresh coat of paint, and he could hold a gun firmly in his hands, fiddling with the trigger when one stepped too close.

It was unpleasant that, deep in ruins of the Jericho ship, where the front half had surfaced onto the shores and he could stand dry, there was a shard of glass clearer than the stars in the sky. He could see himself, truly, for every minute that ticked by on his watch.

His suit was sordid and his joints twitched. How much longer could he stand there?

Waiting.

Unmoving.

With nothing but himself to look at.

  
**\--*--**

  
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you look _tired._ ”

Connor smiled and waved off Hank’s sentiment. “Androids don’t get tired.”

They weren’t supposed to.

Each day that slipped by he felt like an anomaly, with silver shackles tied to his legs and thick rosevines wrapping around his throat, constricting and constricting until he wouldn’t be able to say his own name anymore. Tired wasn’t the most befitting word, yet whenever Hank brought it up there was a slight stall in his code that told him to agree.

He never did, but he would’ve liked to.

  
**\--*--**

  
There was a point where you had to accept yourself for who you are, to lay waste to the insecurities and pave a better path towards passion; directing yourself to something you could achieve instead of pausing on what you couldn’t.

Television churned out the message like fresh paste. Soft, palpable, easy to digest. For Connor, it was the hardest thing to swallow.

How were you supposed to accept someone you didn’t know? He was a stranger to himself, a flash of a shadow in his peripherals, nothing but another figure in a mirror that was too foggy to see through.

Months ago, he and Hank would share moments with the programming, explaining intricacies to one another or laughing at eachother’s shortcomings. Overtime, he just couldn’t stomach it – and that was the most alarming thing, considering he didn’t have a stomach. Or a brain, or a heart, or lungs; or flesh that radiated warmth, enough to give Hank to comfort he would’ve sought out from his human son, his human wife and his human friends.

Maybe Jericho was the home he needed after all.

  
**\--*--**

  
“You’ve spent the last week here. Did something happen?” Markus was sharp-eyed. Sharper than Connor thought good.

“Nothing,” he said. “I wanted to help the community more, that’s all.”

Markus said, “Sure; but the community is willing to help you too, should you need it.”

It only begged the question of _why._ Why would they spend precious time on the android that had nearly caused them to crumble? The one who had brought to agents to their home, running them out and gunning them down like vermin? It was unfathomable.

Markus’ fingers brushed against his shoulder, not warm or wrinkly like the pads of Hank’s. It incited familiarity, in turning bringing curiosity; something to explore. Something to answer the doubts and questions that lingered in his mind. He met the freckled face with troubled eyes, then blanketed the hand with his own, pale white synthetic skin with the faint marks.

He wanted to take Markus in like a toxic cloud, something to seep deep into his circuits and remind him of who he was. Markus would make the difference between the android leader and android slayer – they both held countless lives in the palms of their hands, only Connor’s were dull, snuffed out and pleading for a release from limbo.

If Markus could accept him, bring him answers, then he would soon find his own. That’s how it worked, wasn’t it?

Humans longed companionship for a reason, right?

  
**\--*--**

  
_Will you talk to me?_

Who’s message could that be? It was becoming hard to tell the difference between Markus and Hank: both desperately trying to contact him, both superior to him. It didn’t add up… it never added up.

Connor leaned against the railing, looking down at the murky waters. They were dark in the night, almost black, like a freezing void he could dip into at any moment. It was tempting, but… the chill was too overwhelming to consider.

Sharing a familial bond with Hank.

Letting Markus into him – into his essence – sharing him.

It was all meant to fill that freezing void so that it wouldn’t call out to him so eagerly. There was a puzzle in his chest and he was sure they were the pieces, that they _had_ to fit, that once they slotted in he would be washed over with wholeness and feel a pep in his step, an understanding for his being.

As with most events in Connor’s life, it never truly worked out.

He had pushed Markus away, ignoring those sad, rejected eyes – he knew he was making Markus doubt himself, asking himself what he had done wrong, and there was a morbid solace in the fact that the almighty deviant leader got a glimpse of the feelings that plagued Connor daily.

Hank… Hank was volatile. He would care shortly but in violent bursts, imploding him with texts then going silent for days on end. It was like a baited breath, wondering if he would succumb to his own thoughts or send another message.

Meanwhile, Connor couldn’t bring himself to feel one way about anything.

He couldn’t bring himself to feel much at all.

...Was he broken?

  
**\--*--**

  
He headed straight to Sumo when he went home, the first time that month.

Hank wasn’t home.

Blowing past the skewered items on the kitchen bench and the guiltily untouched couch, he enveloped himself in the soft, thick fur and let the readings of nothing but an ageing saint bernard top his empty mind.

When he lifted his head and put his attention elsewhere, he saw the broken glass on the kitchen tiles, the stories told of an angry man who’d drank himself into another stupor.

Connor was inclined to feel concern. It certainly bubbled but ultimately went dormant, unacknowledged, unwanted. The sight of himself, in a single shard of a whisky bottle, dragged him back into the depths of the cold water.

To deviate was to shy away from your goal, to turn to something new, to _become_ something new.

He no longer had a course to follow, only the empty shell of an android once burdened with a purpose.

What was it like to deviate?

Connor could never be certain.


End file.
